PC users not hungry for terabyte drives

Comments from readers

Michael McManus, DigiTimes.com, Taipei

Sunday 7 January 2007

Posted on Jan 22, 04:27
Its an TOTALLY INACCURATE study - the market of PC users in general is SOOOO large (100s of millions or more) so even a fraction of that for the market of people who need TB drives is also SUPER HUGE (at millions)! And they think they can ignore this?!?!
Posted on Jan 9, 10:46
Well, Personally, I am looking forward to the 1 TB drives to drive the price of the 750 and 500 GB Drives down... That way, I can get a TB using Raid 5 and not lose everything when a drive fails. ( I have already Filled and Purged my 400 GBs of Space.)
Posted on Jan 9, 08:55
Well Michael maybe the average PC user doesn't want them (at least until HD content starts chewing up their pathetic 120gb drive..).. but I'll take four in a RAID thanks for my databases..
Posted on Jan 9, 05:11
I love my films, lots of them, and I enjoy music, we all know films take up more space then anything, especially if in dvd format. Give me a TB drive anyday! What the hell make it an EB.
Posted on Jan 9, 04:32
i disagree completely... I have 1TB on my pc and 760G on my server... both full. When you consider that most games today install up to 10GB, how is 100GB drive gonna survive? I have 30GB of home movies just from this Christmas. Doesn't take long.
Posted on Jan 9, 04:25
How often do you listen to even a fraction of 50,000 songs? At about 4 minutes each, listening every waking minute for 16 hours, that is 208 days of nothing but listening to music. I can see your need.
Posted on Jan 9, 03:53
I disagree this prediction too , i am a programmer who works in home and i have lot's of ebooks , cdimages , tools , downloads , articles and so on and i already have 500GB but it's almost full .
i think with normal dvd and hd videos growing need it.
Posted on Jan 9, 03:43
No PC user needs a terabyte drive? Right. Just like no individual would ever need a computer in their home. Users want more storage, and this drive will be a boon to video editors and budding photographers everywhere.
Posted on Jan 9, 03:05
1TB Drives make for an excellent solution for users with home-made servers wanting redundant, high storage capacity without having to use an expensive RAID 5 add-on card, instead utilizing the RAID 1 that is included in 99% of the motherboards on the mark
Posted on Jan 9, 02:32
I think you're all missing the point. The people that read the forums and stuff on the net are hardcore users. Most people aren't. Most people use their computers for email and internet.
Posted on Jan 9, 01:03
Sounds like we have another Thomas J. Watson on our hands... "I think there is a world market for maybe five computers,"

"PC users not hungry for terabyte drives" I'd like to know what research this is based on!
Posted on Jan 9, 00:14
In terms of storage, you can never have a big enough drive. In terms of price, every normal consumer settles for the sweet spot of size and performance per dollar.I would buy a terabyte hard drive if I planned to use more than 2 tb total. Which I do.
Posted on Jan 8, 23:51
Will this be a true 1 TB drive or 1,000,000,000,000 bytes? I think people will be dissapointed when they format their TB drive to 950 GB. When will HDD manufacturers market using true computer terminology?
Posted on Jan 8, 23:39
I understand why PC users have no need for TB drives. It's too hard to work with pics, movies and art on a PC. How much space do you need for a spreadsheet? I switched to Apple 3 years ago and now my life is easy. Apple users need that TB drive.
Posted on Jan 8, 23:22
Wonder how long it takes to do a secure wipe (at least 3 passes) of a 1TB drive?
Posted on Jan 8, 23:15
In the media centric environment 1 Tb is really megre.Add to this (possible)hddvd/blueraydvd ripping,10 plus megapixel photos i expect 1 tb will be norm for most home pc's with in two to three years.
Posted on Jan 8, 22:48
Depends on the transfer rate, if it's a slow 1TB vs 3 fast 360GB, the extra space and power for 3 drives is a good tradeoff for many applications (4 in a RAID may be faster than one). If the 1TB is just as fast then it'll sell.
Posted on Jan 8, 22:43
My home audio / video and software development version control system is half a terabyte, add to that my other 12 computers and so I have a 2.0 terabyte cenral backup repository for all of it, with little to spare. I need 4 of these 1 terabyte drives now.
Posted on Jan 8, 21:59
A movie takes about 2 gigs of my storage space up. I have about 300 movies downloaded, and 50,000 songs downloaded. A 1 terabyte would sure make my life easier.
Posted on Jan 8, 21:11
I'm an HD video editor as well, and the systems we use have 2.3 TB each, and we still fill them up frequently. We've had over a thousand TB (petabyte)for a few years now, and we're approaching 2 petabytes. Storage space is everything in the edit business.
Posted on Jan 8, 21:00
I always used to wonder how I would fill the 40Mb drive in my PC.
Posted on Jan 8, 16:03
I've been waiting for a 1TB drive for a while now. As a pro video editor (HD) and digital content creator I have the need for huge storage capacities and there are a lot of us out there. We just never get the "press" like the gamers do :)
Posted on Jan 8, 15:39
I have been wanting to setup my 10 cam linux vid surveillance system for the last couple of years and I keep pushing it back waiting for a drive just a little larger.

With Terabyte drives I will procrastinate no more!
Posted on Jan 8, 15:19
100-160???? Maybe for a simple surfing computer, but with 10MP cameras becoming common, people's thirst for music and video, 500Gb will seem crowded. Maybe 3-4% of early adopters..2 years from now it will probably be 15-20%
Posted on Jan 8, 14:53
i would love to get some of these. this consumer is hungry for it.
Posted on Jan 8, 14:38
I agree with the other comments. Who said PC users dont want 1TB drives?!?! If YOU don't want them, send them my way!!!
Posted on Jan 8, 14:35
Right now, in my research, the sweet spot for a HD is around 320 GB.

And if one is building a media center computer, the sweet spot seems to be between 1/2 TB and 1 TB, so these drives are just about perfect.
Posted on Jan 8, 09:45
oh im hungery for 1 tb harddrive.
Posted on Jan 8, 07:38
I disagree that desktop penetration for these 1TB drives will only be 3-5%. With increasing storage needs due to video files (think iTunes store), photos, etc. desktop users will need huge drives. Look for the iTV announce Jan 9th to change everything.
Posted on Jan 8, 05:14
I think its a little too subjective to say there isnt a market for hard disk drives. Maybe not the cashcow of the early nineties, but at the same time, supply creates its own demand, and flash competition is fast on the heal's
Quite an assumption.
Posted on Jan 8, 02:21
PC users not hungry for terabyte drives?????
Where did yo get that information from? At the moment i have a 300GB ide, 250GB ide & 160GB ide drives & would love to be able to have everything in one drive for better organizing and performance!
Posted on Jan 7, 23:49
No surprise. No PC user needs a terabyte drive and servers won't likely want them either unless they are price competitive.

Just dumb hype.
Posted on Jan 7, 22:55
The sweet spot for HDD capacity in the average PC remains in the 100-160GB range

100gb is WAY too small. And even hard
to find... and costs almost as much as 250gb drives these day.

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